inkling

thirty six

and oh
you had this glorious vision of youth didn't you just
perfectly executed and framed
on your naive pastel coloured walls and admired by hopeful children
and defeated adults who don't want to tell you the truth.
exhuming the oil paint stench that your young nose cannot detect
 of carefully selected schemes
chosen by a society
who will nervously squeeze you into a mold
rejecting your quirks as
excessive materials not needed to fill out this scene
so they grab the ones that melted into the cookie cutter shape
and give them all a pretty face and paint gritty bright smiles swabbed red with the blood of the person they just stabbed in the back
with their arm around them in the black
and the flash spurts and there you have it
the perfect photo for instagram
because remember oh remember
my darling you must be happy and the world will try to paint you too
grab your cheeks with expectation coated brushes
and drag those blood coated lips that still taste of betrayal
into a smile
in complete denial
of the demons
that you might have hiding in your brain because youth is about fun
and you are not having it
have it have it have it they pound into your walls where that picture perfect portrait hangs
and you stare at it every night
drowning in your thoughts
and wonder where the hell
you went wrong.